Important Quotations Explained
1. The
raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal
entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements.
Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts,
unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown
to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty. Make
thick my blood,
Stop up th’access and passage
to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings
of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep
peace between
Th’ effect and it. Come to
my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for
gall, you murd’ring ministers,
Wherever in
your sightless substances
You wait on nature’s
mischief. Come, thick night,
And pall thee
in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen
knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven
peep through the blanket of the dark,
To
cry ‘Hold, hold!’
2. If
it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well
It
were done quickly. If th’assassination
Could
trammel up the consequence, and catch
With
his surcease success: that but this blow
Might
be the be-all and the end-all, here,
But
here upon this bank and shoal of time,
We’d
jump the life to come. But in these cases
We
still have judgement here, that we but teach
Bloody
instructions which, being taught, return
To
plague th’inventor. This even-handed justice
Commends
th’ingredience of our poisoned chalice
To
our own lips. He’s here in double trust:
First,
as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong
both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who
should against his murderer shut the door,
Not
bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath
borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So
clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will
plead like angels, trumpet-tongued against
The
deep damnation of his taking-off,
And pity,
like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the
blast, or heaven’s cherubin, horsed
Upon
the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall
blow the horrid deed in every eye
That tears
shall drown the wind. I have no spur
To prick
the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting
ambition which o’erleaps itself
And falls
on th’other.
3. Whence
is that knocking?—
How is’t with me, when
every noise appals me?
What hands are here!
Ha, they pluck out mine eyes.
Will all great
Neptune’s ocean wash this blood
Clean from
my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The
multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the
green one red.
4. Out,
damned spot; out, I say. One, two,—why, then ’tis time to do’t.
Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier and afeard? What need
we fear who knows it when none can call our power to account? Yet
who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in
him?
5. She
should have died hereafter.
There would have
been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and
tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty
pace from day to day
To the last syllable
of recorded time.
And all our yesterdays
have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.
Out, out, brief candle.
Life’s but a walking
shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets
his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard
no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full
of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.